The elegant beauty of the solution, a plan to heal rather than to simply defend, left a palpable sense of optimism in the council chamber.
It was Sharon Carter who brought them back to a more immediate reality. She stepped forward from her position, her expression grim and tapped a command into the main console.
The serene view of the Alps on the smart glass walls was instantly replaced by a chaotic map of North America, dotted with blinking red alerts.
"I'm sorry to cut the victory lap short," she said, her voice sharp, cutting through the optimistic chatter. "But we have a situation. A critical one."
"Forty eight hours ago," Sharon began, her words clipped and precise, "there was a major containment breach at 'The Fridge'."
Tony let out a low groan. "The Fridge? I thought the Federation decommissioned that prehistoric icebox. That place was one of SHIELD's worst ideas… a cryo prison held together with duct tape and wishful thinking."
"It was in the process of being decommissioned," Sharon corrected him. "The remaining high risk inmates were scheduled for transfer to the new EDF maximum security facility in Greenland. The breach occurred during a systems hand off between the skeleton crew of old SHIELD loyalists and the incoming EDF wardens. The official report cites a catastrophic power failure in the primary cryo core, leading to a system wide thaw and a failure of all secondary containment."
"Translation: someone screwed up," Pietro muttered from the back.
"Royally," Sharon confirmed. "The result is that five of the most dangerous enhanced individuals SHIELD had in custody are now out. They are in the wind and they are already causing chaos."
On the main screen, five files appeared, each with a name and a list of terrifying abilities.
"Brock Rumlow, aka 'Crossbones'," Sharon said, as a picture of the scarred HYDRA enforcer appeared. "Elite mercenary, master tactician and one of Pierce's top lieutenants who wasn't taken out in the initial purge. Responsible for at least three political assassinations we know of."
The next file appeared. "Dr. Aris Thorne, codename 'Cadaver.' A former bio physicist who experimented with Pym Particle derivatives. He's in a state of permanent quantum phasing, allowing him to walk through solid matter, but his cellular structure is rapidly decaying. He's unstable, both physically and mentally and is desperate for a cure he believes was stolen from him."
She continued down the list. A pyrokinetic, a rogue super soldier from a forgotten program and an electromagnetic manipulator.
Each was a significant threat in their own right. Together, they were a nightmare.
The blinking red dots on the map showed their trail of destruction: a raided police armory in Denver, a blacked out power grid in Kansas and a trail of bodies.
"The EDF's conventional forces are already mobilizing to contain the damage and manage civilian evacuation," the Leader stated, his face a mask of grim concern. "But these are not conventional threats. They are enhanced, experienced and coordinated. We will have to deploy the ERO. It will be the unit's first major public engagement."
He looked around the table, the gravity of the decision clear. "A battle between super soldiers and rogue enhanced on American soil... it will be a public affair no matter how surgically they operate. It will incite fear and test the public's faith in our new systems."
"Worse than that," Tony added, his eyes dark. "Where do we put them when we catch them? We can't just throw them in a standard EDF prison. They'll walk out before the paperwork is filed. We're right back where we started. We need a permanent solution. A real one."
This was the opening Aryan had been waiting for. He looked at Tony, T'Challa and Namor, a shared understanding passing between the Tarot Club members. They knew what was coming.
"It's a problem we anticipated," Aryan said calmly, his voice drawing the full attention of the room. He stepped forward and placed his hand on the vibranium table. "We knew that as our world became more... complicated... we would eventually encounter individuals who could not be held by conventional means. A prison made of steel and concrete is meaningless to someone who can phase through walls or melt them."
He swiped his hand and the map of North America was replaced by a stunning image.
It was an architectural rendering of state of the art facility. It was a hexagonal structure, stark and functional, seemingly floating in a quiet.
"For the past several months," Aryan continued, "our collective research divisions… Umbrella's theoretical physics department, Stark's power systems engineers and Wakanda's dimensional sciences team… have been working on a solution. This is the result. We are calling it 'The Phantom Zone'."
Pietro and Bucky stared at the hologram, impressed by its scale. It looked like the most secure prison ever conceived.
"What is it?" Sharon asked.
"It is a state of the art correctional and containment facility," Aryan explained, his tone that of a project manager delivering a briefing. "With one key difference: it is not on Earth. It has been constructed inside a stable pocket dimension, completely severed from our own. It is a prison on its own private island of reality."
Tony, picking up his part of the pre planned presentation, stepped forward. "The science is a fusion of our three fields. Wakanda provided the theoretical understanding of dimensional stability. I designed a sustainable power core capable of maintaining the gateway. And Aryan's people... they wrote the book on creating artificial pocket dimensions. The best part? It's incredibly efficient. Maintaining the dimension and the facility within it uses less power than a city block."
The hologram zoomed in, showing the interior. There were two distinct sections. One was a series of heavily technologically advanced prison cells. The other was a secure vault.
"Its purpose is twofold," Aryan continued. "First, it is the ultimate prison. Each cell is a self contained habitat. Life support, plumbing, everything. It's fully automated. A machine delivers nutrient paste… all the calories and vitamins needed to sustain life… twice a day. There is zero human interaction required. Once an inmate is placed inside, there is no need for guards, no chance of bribery and no possibility of a riot."
He zoomed in on the walls of a cell. "And no possibility of escape. The walls are the literal edge of that reality. There is nowhere to go."
The implications were staggering. A perfectly automated prison with no chance of escape and zero risk to human guards.
"And its second purpose?" the Leader asked, his gaze fixed on the vault section.
"Secure storage," Aryan replied. "The vault is for... sensitive items. Dangerous artifacts, unstable alien technologies, things that are too lethal to be studied on Earth and too resilient to be destroyed. The Phantom Zone will serve as the ultimate off site locker. An item placed within it is removed from our reality entirely, unable to influence or harm our world in any way."
"And the question of authority?" the Leader asked, turning to Aryan. "A power like this... to exile a person from our reality itself... it cannot be held by any one individual. The potential for tyranny is too great."
This, Aryan thought, is the secret brilliance of it.
Publicly, he was about to create the perfect system of checks and balances, binding his powerful allies with rules they would never break.
The Phantom Zone was a construct within his Fog Dimension. This was a collection box for his private menagerie of scientific curiosities.
These powerful inmates would be moved to Research Island and studied whenever he wished.
He looked at the other five members of the Illuminati council at the table.
"We agree completely, Chancellor," Aryan said. "Accountability is the cornerstone of this entire council. Which is why we designed the system with an unbreakable safeguard from the very beginning."
He made a gesture and the hologram of the prison was joined by a schematic of a complex control device. "The entry and exit protocol… the 'key' to the Phantom Zone… is not a single key. It has been divided into six, distinct and co-dependent components."
"Each primary member of the Illuminati Council," he said, looking at Tony, T'Challa, Namor, Wanda, the Leader and finally himself, "will be the sole holder of one of these six components. For our purposes today, you can think of them as six quantum encrypted digital codes. All six codes must be entered simultaneously at the portal generator to open a stable gateway. No single person can open it. No two, or even three people, can open it. It requires the unanimous consent and physical presence of the entire Council."
"We would be placing our trust not in a single individual, but in the collective wisdom and character of this Council," T'Challa summarized.
"A perfect system of accountability," the Leader said, nodding slowly. "The political and legal ramifications are immense, but with such a safeguard. It is a responsible and necessary step forward for planetary security. It is a far more humane and secure solution than any prison we could build on Earth."
"These concerns are trivial," Namor stated, his voice impatient but filled with a new confidence. "The only question is, does it work? Rumlow and his associates are out there, burning a path across the continent. Can this 'Phantom Zone' truly contain them?"
"It can," Tony said with absolute certainty. "And it will."
The proposal was unanimously and enthusiastically approved.
"Then it is settled," Aryan said, dismissing the hologram. The serene view of the Alps returned to the walls. "Our course of action is clear. Sharon, Bucky, Pietro. Mobilize your ERO teams. You have your targets. Hunt them down."